Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Douglas G. Greene and Mysteries Unlocked

Douglas Greene

Today is the seventieth birthday of Douglas G. Greene, the great American crime fiction scholar who, among his many other accomplishments, published the seminal John Dickson Carr biography, John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) and founded the mystery short fiction publishing house Crippen & Landru.

Doug's work over the decades has illustrated the richness of crime fiction from the gaslight era to the present time.

Although often today twentieth-century crime fiction is simplified as a dichotomous conflict between masculine American hard-boiled/noir and feminine British cozy/clue puzzle (and there are frequently unjustly dismissive attitudes toward the latter), Doug's ventures in both genre history and publishing have illustrated otherwise, that our mystery past in fact was so much more complex and rich. I think the essays in Mysteries Unlocked do the same.

I wish you a most happy birthday, Doug, and I thank you for all you have given us!

Coming up for Friday is a review of the latest publication of Crippen & Landru, Night Call, a new collection of short fiction by the great crime writer Charlotte Armstrong (1905-1969).

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About Me

Author of "Masters of the 'Humdrum' Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961"
"Magisterial"--Michael Dirda
"Edgar Committee, Mystery Writers of America, take note!"--Allen J. Hubin
"This should be a certain Edgar nominee"--Jon L. Breen, Mystery Scene
"Clues and Corpses: The Detective Fiction and Mystery Criticism of Todd Downing."
"Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene" (editor and contributor)
"The Spectrum of English Murder: The Detective Fiction of Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher and GDH and Margaret Cole"
and the Edgar-nominated "Murder in the Closet: Queer Clues in Crime Fiction Before Stonewall" (editor and contributor)